Disclaimer: I am not an investment advisor. When I describe my own trading activities, it is not intended as advice or solicitation of any kind.

31 January 2011

Happy 1976

I first wrote in November, 2010, about my Year-a-Month project.  It all started when I found vast holes in the McHouse Worldwide Music Library, especially from my childhood before I knew what was cool.  For example, calling myself a heavy metal fan without any Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, or Iron Maiden in my collection is a tad on the naive side, if not downright hypocritical.

January would have been 1976, but I ended up skipping last month because by the time I had recovered from my sinus infection, returned from Utah, and resolved the NAS hard drive scare (hopefully the hard drive scare of 2011), it was late January already.  So, no big deal, we push everything back a month.

In 1976, artists on my list released the following albums:

Technical Ecstasy, by Black Sabbath - I couldn't find this one available in MP3 downloadable format, so it is on its way from Amazon on a CD. 

Rainbow Rising, by Rainbow - This is a tiny little 6-song album wherein the first song didn't thrill me, so I just picked up 2-6.  I discovered Dio about the time of his death, and realized that his voice lurked in many of my hard rock memories.  Although Rainbow is a little (just barely - nothing like Deep Purple) on the 70s-pop side for me, it's still worth picking up for the music history if nothing else.

Presence, by Led Zeppelin - yet another Led Zeppelin album I'm shocked that we don't have.  It absolutely rocks, and I'm glad I found it.

Sad Wings of Destiny, by Judas Priest - I really only am familiar with the very biggest of the Judas Priest hits, but I'm finding a lot of things to love in these full albums from the early years.  It's almost an early groove-metal sound.

Free-for-All, by Ted Nugent - the physical CD was cheaper than the MP3 download, go figure.  This one is also on its way.

A Mini-Rant
OK, Amazon, I get that you like money, and I have no problem with that.  But when you sell a 7-song album for $9.99, and then hold back one of the 99c-each songs so that I have to get the whole album to get it at all, it seems petty and money-grubbing.  7 songs for $9.99 is a lot like $1.43/song, so make the songs $1.45 and let me download any and all of them.  Oh wait, if you did that you couldn't advertise that you sell songs for 99c each.  Right, so obviously the right thing to do is bundle them and make me rant (if this weren't a family-friendly blog I would point out that this is called "bundle-fucking me").  My blood pressure thanks you.

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